Tag: Cartoon (page 3 of 3)

Weekly Cartoon Panel – Bigfoot Growth Spurt

March 21, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Bigfoot Leaves an Impression

Bigfoot and Littlerfoot
Bigfoot is my favorite mysterious creature.  Yep.  BF is my BFF.  I can identify with him more readily than the other camera shy monster types.  For one, he walks upright–just like I’ve been doing since about 11 months.  And, like me, he’s American (Washington state counts, right?).   Sorry Nessie.  I may have some Scottish roots, but I’ve never called her home.

Bigfoot, or Sasquatch as it is often called, is also presumably a forest lover. The same goes for me.  We both have hair and we both like to walk around barefoot.  I cannot imagine him in a pair of Tevas, and I sincerely doubt that Timberlands come in BF sizes.

But what I might find most appealing about the Sasquatch is his take home factor.  Bigfoot, I feel, would be the easiest creature to domesticate.  The Jersey Devil might assault (or worse, eat) your loved ones and aliens might do similar, though by more high tech means.  No aquarium at the pet store is going to be able to contain the Loch Ness Monster (or Champ, his relative known to inhabit Lake Champlain).  Conversely, you’d be able to invite Bigfoot home to meet the family.  A solitary sort, Bigfoot would naturally take to games of hide ‘n seek with the children, and if you’ve a daughter, she’d enjoy combing out his hair.  But be wary of mites and burrs.  And don’t ask him to play kickball with your loved ones, as injuries are certain to occur.  And buy earplugs, ‘cuz the snoring!  And also, consider dowsing him with a strong-scented perfume or cologne, ‘cuz the smell! Hmmm…maybe Sasquatch is best left to the wilds after all.

Weekly Cartoon Panel – At the Auction

March 11, 2016 / / 0 Comments

At the Auction…

Ping Pong table at auction

It’s thrilling to win in a competition—even when victory is sealed sheerly because one offers to pay more money for an object than the next guy.  That’s precisely the victory I experienced many years ago at an auction house near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  In fact, I don’t even remember what I “won” the right to purchase.  What I do recall is the feeling I got when the auctioneer pointed at me with his gavel and said, “SOLD!  To the sharpest dressed man in the room.”  I felt a popcorn popper rush of energy, a surge of adrenaline like back in my high school sports playing days.

Local auctions didn’t always get my heart pumping.  But the PBS television series Antiques Roadshow put a light on the possibilities of discovering rare and unique items at neighborhood estate and garage sales.  The show’s appraisers became rock stars; when they stood onstage, I listened.

I even visited a Roadshow taping, traveling five hours with some dusty old wares to Hartford, Connecticut. Though my items were essentially worthless—family heirlooms I should continue to treasure, as I was told—I did find my way on camera…accidentally.  My father and I were caught on tape as we wandered around the Roadshow set aimlessly, searching for the collectibles appraiser.  Though not an ideal television debut, as I sat and watched my image on plasma, my heart did begin to race.  You could say I felt an auction house high.

 

 

An Homage to The Sunday Funnies

March 4, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Remembering…

Remembering back to the holidays and birthdays of my childhood thirty some odd years ago, I realize that I’ve forgotten many of the presents I was given.  Generally speaking, I could count on my uncle for a Lego set (at the time the only options were Lego town or space) and my grandparents on my mom’s side were always good for an outfit.  I never did much appreciate the clothes they gave me–but I was always grateful for the wrapping paper.  You see, my grandmother would wrap my gifts with the pages of the Sunday comics, aka “The Sunday Funnies.”

I loved reading comics.

I especially loved reading them on Sundays, when they were given the color treatment.  I would come home from church and stalk the house for the paper, so I could get my hands on the latest escapades of Beetle Baily and Hagar the Horrible and Heathcliff and Garfield and–am I forgetting any other orange cat cartoons?

My hometown paper had a couple pages of color comics, but my grandparents?  They lived much closer to New York City, and their “big city” Sunday paper had two or three times as many cartoons!  Those that didn’t end up as gift wrap sat in a pile in gran’s attic, awaiting my arrival.  Truthfully, there wasn’t much for a kid to do at my grandparents’ house when the weather outside was poor, so I just sat–sometimes even in the attic, immediately after grabbing the topmost pages from the pile–and read and read.  I would read so many colored comics that my fingertips would ingest the ink from the pages and my eyes would begin to see halftone dots everywhere I looked.

Looking back, my grandmother, alive during the Great Depression, was probably just being thrifty when she chose to wrap my gifts in Sunday funnies.  But in doing so, she presented extraordinary blessings–blessings of laughter and artistic appreciation that stimulate me to this day.

See the evidence as follows:

cartoon by Jeremy Gates, an homage to the Sunday funnies

 

(My crack at a punchy 1-panel comic, a la “The Far Side” or Bizarro.”)

I’ll venture to post a cartoon such as this every week.

Supporters of Issue 3 in Ohio

November 4, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Supporters of Issue 3

Supporters of Issue 3

Yesterday, November 3rd, 2015, Ohioans went to the polls to vote on several issues. As voting results show, those in favor of marijuana legalization in Ohio (Issue 3 on the ballot) couldn’t drum up enough support.

See voting results at http://www.10tv.com/content/sections/local/elections/index.html

Scream? Ghosts Make Me Yawn.

October 26, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Scream? Ghosts Make Me Yawn.
A Halloween-themed mini comic.

Ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

panel15-withcolor

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

ghosts

Frozen on Frozen

January 31, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Frozen on Frozen

“It’s show business. No show, no business.” – Dick Wolf

Green lighting any big-budget motion pictures is, by virtue of the price tag, a big gamble.  But movie studios are in the business of producing movies.  Hollywood producers are paid to sniff out and pay for the next story idea that will capture the imagination—ahem, and dollars—of moviegoers.  Although they can’t always forecast what will hit, they know a hit when…reports trickle in showing BIG weekend box office numbers.

And did they ever hit with Frozen.  By April of 2014, the Disney animated film (which opened in November of 2013) brought in over $400 million in the U.S. alone.  The budget for the film?  An estimated $150 million (see box office details here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/business?ref_=tt_ql_dt_4).

What made Frozen a certifiable sensation?  Was it the skill of Disney animators and background artists who brought a winter wonderland (based on Norwegian woodlands and fjordlands) peopled with rich characters to life?  Was it the fairy tale element, wisely incorporated into the film, based on the story “The Snow Queen” by Hans Christian Andersen?  Was it the voicework lent to the characters?  The lines the characters spoke and sang?  Was it the musical score?

As is the case with any successful film, ’twas a mixture of the above, an amalgam of the work of numerous contributors that made the film work. But I venture there is a key moment that struck a chord with the primary target audience, children, and more specifically, young girls.  That moment?  It’s the obvious choice: the moment when Queen Elsa, restrained from being herself by her parents and her position, literally let her hair down while ascending a tall mountain, donned a shimmering icy blue dress, and taking on a newfound poise and posture, belted out the now all-too-trite refrain “Let it go!”

Though Frozen producers didn’t realize the financial success of their film until after its release, I they must have envisioned it when they first experienced THE moment.  When Idina Menzel, the soprano behind Elsa’s virtuosic voice sang that chorus to them, they could surely see parents aplenty letting go of their hard-earned dollars at the movieplexes.

The momentum of the film may finally be slowing, now that Christmas 2014 is over and Santa has delivered all the Frozen DVDs and Elsa ‘n Anna dolls and other merchandise.  (Did Banana Boat or Hawaiian Tropic come out with a 100+ SPF Olaf sunscreen?  Just sayin’ there was an opportunity there.)  All the daddy ‘n daughter duets of Idina’s chart topper and Oscar winner have been posted to YouTube.

CODA.

But the makers of that Frozen musical moment aren’t done.  This Sunday, Idina Menzel will be singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl.  And the composer-lyricist team who wrote THAT SONG have a new number that’ll be delivered by Neil Patrick Harris during next month’s Oscar broadcast.

Deflategate – The New England Patriots Cross America

January 25, 2015 / / 0 Comments
Deflategate - The New England Patriots Cross America

New England Patriots Deflategate

 
Back in the Revolutionary days, George Washington and other patriots crossed the Delaware.
In recent times, Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and other Patriots crossed many Americans when it was discovered that 11 of 12 footballs used by their offense were deflated (Intentionally?) to a level beneath NFL standards.

Newer posts

Up ↑